I Much Prefer Facebook and Friendster, but MySpace Won't Let Me Quit!

A while back, I did what every person in my immediate social circle seemed to be doing and signed up with a MySpace account. It seemed fun, unique and a way to keep up with friends and perhaps find some friends that I had lost touch with. That was at the beginning. Before MySpace was sold to Rupert Murdoch, head of Fox and a number of other corporate conglomerates. That was before it was invaded by tons and tons of flashy ads that pop-up and accompany my profile screen, taking up bandwidth and making it difficult for me to run any other programs while on that page. Now when you sign on to MySpace, movie trailers begin to load and run without you clicking on them. Music plays without you being remotely interested in whatever new artist it is. And worst of all... if there are glitches with anything on your page or heaven forbid, you wish to change your email, account settings or delete your account - don't expect any help from MySpace. Their user support and help functions are utterly useless. How do I know this? Because I've written them email after email pleading with them to change my email address and finally to delete my account and no luck! For such a massively popular website, you would think they would have worked out some of these problems. Or maybe, once they get you to sign up, they just don't care. Here is what I have had to deal with:

Email Account Frustrations!
When you sign up for MySpace, you must do so with a valid email account. This is standard for any social networking site. I signed up with an account that I had three years ago, from Earthlink, who was my service provider at the time. I moved and in my new residence, didn't continue to use Earthlink as my internet service provider. At the time, Google started to unveil Gmail and I signed up and have been a happy Gmail user ever since. Problem is, MySpace won't recognize my new email account. Why? Because in order to change your email address on MySpace, you have to confirm the change at your OLD email address. That's right. They send a message to your old account and you need to email back from your old account and confirm. Why does it not occur to someone working for MySpace that sometimes they reason that you want to change your email address, is because the old one is no longer valid! Therefore, now I'm stuck with an old invalid email address as my login and I have...

Message Notification Ineptitude!
When a friend leaves me a message or tries to contact me, I have no idea. And that has caused some problems because my friends and even some "long lost friends" have contacted me. And I didn't get their messages for a month. Why? Because it sends notification to your email address. Without a way to change your email address or even to add an alternate address for notifications, there is no way of knowing. I have even told several people not to contact me through the website, but its become a habit for lots of people to leave comments and messages and bulletins because they assume that everyone is on MySpace, so its easy to post invitations and leave little notes. I don't actually like the website. Its ugly and I'm sick of all the ads and time it takes to load. I don't visit it often. I much prefer other social networking sites now and so I don't have a reason to check my MySpace page, except that now I'm paranoid that I'm going to miss out on a cool gathering or someone will find me from my high school and college days and then think I'm ignoring their message. Ugh! So what's a girl to do? Naturally I contacted their help support team...

They have no support for users in place.
None. Nada. I have emailed and used the function through the site to try to get some help with this issue and have NEVER received a response. I have numerous friends with similar stories. One friend was getting her message box spammed like crazy. No help. One friend had problems with her pictures not working. No help. Many many people I know have the email problem or can't remember their login names and have then had to create multiple profiles, but can't delete the old ones. It makes me wonder if MySpace's so-called "raging popularity" is actually a myth and their numbers are only because no one who has joined in the last four years is able to quite or get their profile deleted! So that was my last resort too. I sent pleas, emails, messages and if there were contact phone numbers, I would call them. Please cancel my account and delete my profile!

No way to delete your account and profile.
I want to just stop using it, but my name and my info and everything will still be out there. In order to delete your account you need to confirm that you actually want to delete your account, by responding to an email send to your login account. So it all comes back to that faulty email system. I can't receive emails at an invalid address and therefore I can't make it clear enough to them that I NO LONGER WANT A MYSPACE ACCOUNT. Even if I email and send messages to their supposed support staff - stating that I want my account deleted - because they DON'T EVER RESPOND.

The Bottom Line.
Go with Friendster or Facebook. Both have clean designs with less invasive and flashy ads. Both have many more options in controlling how you are notified and who is allowed to view your profiles or notify you. Both have allowed me to change those options, change my email addresses and gotten back to me with any help requests I have made to their user support staff.

Until they get better customer service and options, stop supporting the online mogul MySpace. Don't be a part of letting Rupert Murdoch's brand of ad-ware, spin and hype rule the Web 2.0 world. In other words, just don't sign up. Because once you do, good luck trying to get out!